Prep Volleyball: Dakota Indians roll past Durand Bulldogs

DAKOTA — Without its head coach and all-area setter, it was still business as usually for Dakota on Tuesday. The unbeaten Indians rolled to their 21st win by beating Durand 25-17, 25-13 in an NUIC East volleyball tilt.

DAKOTA — Without its head coach and all-area setter, it was still business as usually for Dakota on Tuesday. The unbeaten Indians rolled to their 21st win by beating Durand 25-17, 25-13 in an NUIC East volleyball tilt.

Coach Shannon Williams missed the match because she was ill and junior Jaycee Cleaver was held out after she rolled her ankle in practice, but Dakota (21-0, 5-0) didn’t really miss a beat in the straight-set win. Senior Cora Fiene picked up the slack setting the ball to the Indians’ strong arsenal of hitters, who were able to overwhelm the Bulldogs (6-2, 2-2).

“With these girls it’s really easy,” Fiene said. “They all handle adversity well. We all stepped up to the plate. They made it easy on the setting, our passing was great and I was just glad we were able to get out there and get the job done and all play well together as a team.”

Senior Sarah Thompson made it look easy as she pounded a match-high 14 kills to lead the attack for the Indians.

“She looked good,” Dakota assistant coach Tyler Benning said. “She knew she had to step up and she did.”

If there was one area that the unblemished Indians struggled against Durand, it was their service game. Dakota had nine service errors for the match.

“That was pretty weak,” Benning said. “It’s something we’ve worked on in practice. Last week we opened the gym up so we could actually practice on a full court and that helped so we need to get back to doing that again.”

Serving problems aside, the Indians were still able to record 10 aces in the match. Eden Meier and Fiene each had three, while Sarah and Katie Thompson both had two.

“We’ve been kind of struggling with (serving) a bit recently,” Fiene said. “We work at it a lot practice. We try to keep it aggressive but we need to be able to keep it in.”

The Bulldogs were able to hang around a bit longer in the first set than the second, but never posed a threat to Dakota.

“I was pretty proud of how the girls played the first game but the attitude they had in second game I wish they wouldn’t have had that,” Durand coach Molly Kinney said. “I thought we could’ve at least given them a better game.”